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Punjab Govt
March 03, 2008

 

 

BADAL CONGRATULATES PUNJABIS ON RECEIVING GURU MANYO
GRANTH JAGRITI YATRA IN PUNJAB

MOHALI MARCH 3, 2008

Punjab Chief Minister Mr. Parkash Singh Badal here today congratulated all the Punjabis on the historic moment to receive the Holy Relics and the Weapons of the 10th Guru Sri Guru Gobind Singh Ji Maharaj. Mr. Badal was addressing a mammoth gathering of devotees at the entry point of Mohali near YPS School to receive 'Guru Manyo Granth Jagriti Yatra'.

While speaking on the occasion Mr. Badal said that we are fortunate enough that we are celebrating 300th year of 'Guruta Gaddi Diwas' of Sri Guru Granth Sahib Ji in our lifetime with the blessings of the Almighty. He said that the Yatra reached Punjab after covering 151 cities in different states and would cover the entire Punjab during next one and a half month to bring awareness amongst the people especially the younger generations about the rich legacy of Sikh religion and the great sacrifices made by Sri Guru Gobind Singh Ji to serve the mankind with missionary zeal and disseminated a message of universal brotherhood. He further appealed all the sections of the society to celebrate this auspicious occasion with full religions fervour.

On this occasion Mr.Surjit Singh Barnala, Governor Tamil Nadu also paid his obeisance to the weapons of Sri Guru Gobind Singh ji and hand written 'Bir Sahib' of Sri Guru Granth Sahib.

On this occasion Mr.Badal Honoured Mr. Parminder Singh Pasricha, DGP of Maharastra and Chairman, Central National Development Committee of Sri Hazoor Sahib, Nanded.

The prominent amongst others who were present on this occasion included President SGPC Jathedar Avtar Singh, Secretary General Prof. Prem Singh Chandumajra, Mr.Ujjagar Singh Badali, Mr.Balbir Singh Sidhu (Both MLAs), Mr.Jasjit Singh Bani, Chairman Punjab State Co-operative Bank. Jathedar Hardeep Singh, Member SGPC and Jathedar Amrik Singh Mohali.


LOAN WAIVER-THE BIGGEST MISNOMER OF THE CENTURY :BADAL

Chandigarh March, 3- The Punjab Chief Minister Mr. Parkash Singh Badal today demanded that the ratio of relief in the so-called debt waiver announced in the Union Budget should be made proportionate to the contribution of the states to the central food kitty. " If this is done, Punjab, which puts in over 50% of the foodgrains in the national pool, will get Rs 30,000 crores out of the announced scheme " declared Mr. Badal, adding that by doing this, the center would be doing no favours to the state but would merely be giving it its due.

He said that according to details gathered by him from the Government of India and the State Government records, there was no such thing as a" Loan waiver scheme" in the Union Budget and the term is a huge fraud played on poor and innocent farmer's "What has been done really is a mere "partial debt default readjustment scheme" and there is nothing such as an 'across-the-board loan waiver'. The term "Loan waiver" is the biggest misnomer of the century," said the Mr. Badal addressing media persons here today.

Elaborating his point, Mr. Badal said that scheme partially covered only those farmers who had defaulted on loans taken as on 31 March 2007 and due for repayment on 31 December 2007. The total debt liability of Punjab Farmers is Rs. 35,000 crore (as on date) and they would get relief not exceeding 3% of their total burden. The maximum benefit that Punjab will get out of the debt default readjustment scheme worth Rs. 60,000 crore is a meager 1223 crore, and that too in staggered book adjustments of Institutional Loans. The Chief Minister repeated that this amount is only 3% of the total debt liability of 35000 crore of the Punjab farmers and merely 2% of the total so called waiver announced.

It is a well-known fact that Institutional crop loans are re-energized every six months by different banking institutions and thus these are not the real source of farmers' woes. " The real back breaking burden comes from non-institutional loans taken by the Farmers from Private money lenders. Since, the interests of both the lenders and borrowers have a common ground and exist on long-term relationship basis, the Centre should release funds to meet these loans, directly to the lenders or through the farmers. The total amount of these loans comes to about Rs. 12,000 crores.

He said that the poorest of the poor have been left out of the scheme, as there is no provision for the 15 lakh farm labour or for hundreds of thousands of landless farmers in the proposed scheme.

Mr. Badal, reeled of data to substantiate his point. He said, that actually, Punjab farmers stand to lose on account of the joint land holding system prevalent in the State. These joint land holding usually exceed five acres, rendering most of the farmers ineligible. The total land holdings in the state of Punjab are ten lakhs and since these are mentioned as joint ownerships they far exceed five acres limit, even though individually many farmers own less than five acres. Thus, nearly 80 % of the farmers in ten lakh holdings would be left out of the ambit of the so called central scheme.

Mr. Badal also made several suggestions to make what he called " the cosmetic measure" truly meaningful. One of these relates to making individual ownership the criterion. He also wanted the landless farmers to be brought within the parameters of the loan readjustment scheme. Mr Badal demanded that the rate of interest on farm loans should also be brought down to four per cent.


PUNJAB GOVERNMENT SIGNS AN AGREEMENT WITH HSCC FOR DEVELOPMENT OF BFUHS & GOVERNMENT MEDICAL COLLEGE AMRITSAR

CHANDIGARH MARCH 3, 2008

An agreement was signed today between the Hospital Services Consultancy Corporation (HSCC) (a Government of India Enterprise) and Punjab Government for providing consultancy for construction of Buildings in the Government Guru Ram Dass Medical College & Hospital Complex Amritsar and Baba Farid University of Health Sciences (BFUHS), Faridkot here at Punjab Bhawan .

The agreement was signed in the presence of Punjab Chief Minister Mr.Parkash Singh Badal, Medical Education & Research Minister Tikshan Sood, Vice Chairman State Planning Board Prof. JS Bajaj and Media Advisor to Chief Minister Harcharan Bains. Executive Director HSCC Sanjiv Sood and Secretary Medical Education & Research Jagjit Puri signed the agreement on the behalf of the HSCC and Punjab Government respectively.

Speaking on the occasion, Punjab Chief Minister Mr.Parkash Singh Badal said that with the upgradation of these two prestigious medical institutions, medical education and health care would go a long way in setting up a new bench mark in the quality health delivery system not only in the northern India but also in the Indian sub continent. He said that Punjab government was committed to upgrade the health and medical facilities to provide better and affordable health services to the people being a core sector.

While congratulating the department, the Chief Minster urged HSCC to complete the given work in a stipulated time frame. He also praised the initiative of Prof. Bajaj for having taken special pains to have these projects formulated.

Vice Chairman State Planning Board Prof. JS Bajaj stated that the Medical Education & Research department alongwith the BFUHS would be spending a sum of Rs.144.16 crore on the construction of new buildings of BFUHS and the Government Medical College Amritsar. Of this, Rs.77.10 crore would be spent on the new buildings of the Govt. Medical College Amritsar with an area of 27450 sq. meters and Rs.67.06 crore on BFUHS campus with an area of 39300 sq. meters.

In his address, Medical Education & Research Minister Tikshan Sood said that the initiative of the state government was likely to go a long way in improving the infrastructure of the State's oldest century old Medical College in Amritsar and would qualitatively improve the delivery of Medical Education & health care services for the people of the area. In Amritsar, the state government would be spending Rs.2 crore on construction of additional floors in the Bebe Nanaki Mother & Child Care Centre in the premises of the Govt. Medical College Amritsar. Rs. 21.60 crore would be spent on the Guru Tegh Bahadur Block for Imaging & Diagnostic Services with a super-speciality ward which would have latest diagnostic equipment like CT Scan, MRI etc. A sum of Rs.3 crore would be spent on construction of Swami Vivekanand Drug Dependence Treatment Centre to provide counseling, treatment and rehabilitation of drug dependents.

Mr.Sood further said that a new building for the Nursing College was also proposed at a cost of Rs.4.00 crore whereas Rs.12.40 crore would be spent on Hospital Information System, Picture Archival Communication System, Laundry, CSSD and other logistics of the complex. With the construction of the building of Nursing College, the college would seek to start Post-Graduate courses in Nursing to overcome the shortage of trained nursing teachers in the state. An auditorium with the state-of-art facilities is also proposed in the plans as a unique facility of a prayer room in every ward with audio connectivity for relay of devotional music.

Mr. Sood assured the Chief Minister that the works would be commissioned after following due procedure shortly and completed within 18 to 24 months. Punjab Infrastructure Development Board would be the nodal agency for the implementation of this prestigious project.

Meanwhile the Chairman HSCC VC Sharma assured the Chief Minster and all other present that they would live upto the confidence reposed in them by the Punjab Government.


BADAL ANNOUNCES RS.1 LAKH EACH FOR FOUR U-19 WORLD CHAMPIONS FROM PUNJAB

CHANDIGARH MARCH 3, 2008

Punjab Chief Minister Mr.Parkah Singh Badal today announced Rs.1 lakh cash award each for four players from Punjab viz. Siddarth Kaul, Taruvar Kohli, Mandeep Singh and Parry Goyal of the Under-19 Indian Cricket Team which won the world cup at Kuala Lumpur yesterday by defeating South Africa in the final.

Congratulating these young players on their rare fete, Mr.Badal said that they had really done both India and Punjab proud. The Chief Minister said that he was confident that these dynamic players through their outstanding performance would one day certainly don the cap of senior team. Mr. Badal also congratulated the other members of the team and their coach Mr.Manish Bali and stated that the state government would also felicitate them in a befitting manner at a function to be organized later.

 

 

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